How to Save a Life
by loviegurlie
Summary: CHARACTER DEATH! “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” she muttered under her breath but continued on at a louder volume. “This isn’t your fault..."


**_Lovie: _**Hey guys, I'm back real quick for this. I've been playing with it for a while-several years in my head, followed by a couple months in a notebook, and finally a couple more months here on the comp. So, yeah. There are lyrics at the end, feel free to skip them. I don't really care. And as always, I appreciate reviews, but I won't beg for them! Thanks guys and gals! (PS it is a tragedy of sorts...so, yeah...)

* * *

"Turk, baby we need to talk," a Latina woman told her husband, Christopher Turk. Her long curly black hair was pulled back in a low pony tail, purple scrubs seemingly too cheerful for this moment. Turk merely began to walk away, attempting to avoid the conversation.

"Sit down, it's just a talk," she began, but he kept walking, throwing his wife, Carla Espinosa-Turk, a polite smile that said he was needed elsewhere as she focused on a window to her right. He passed her on her left trying to apologize with his eyes, but she never removed her gaze from the window. Carla knew he was scared and that he blamed himself for what had happened. Hell, she did too! He would never admit that fact, but it was the truth and she knew it. Carla looked around the hospital, glancing over the staff and patients alike with the same bland look and for the first time since she started working at Sacred Heart she began to wonder why she came…came to face death and illness every single day without ever seeming to make a dent.

_**-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**_

Jordan watched her ex-husband-slash-current-lover pour another scotch as he resumed pacing around their living room. She waddled over to the couch and plopped down on it, content for the moment just scrutinizing him. Perry Cox didn't even glance at her, opting to remain doing what he had been doing in silence.

"Perry," she sighed, trying to gain his attention but failing. He didn't even grunt in acknowledgement. "He's suffering from a punctured and collapsed lung, a severe concussion, several broken and cracked ribs, a shattered wrist, dislocated shoulder, a leg that was broken in _two_ places and had to have a partial liver transplant and had a burst spleen," she said in a false calm voice. The father of her children slowly put his drink down, hand shaking violently.

"I can't believe I'm saying this," she muttered under her breath but continued on at a louder volume. "This isn't your fault. It was the idiot who hit him. He's getting the best treatment, was operated on by the best surgeons and has the best staff watching him all the time. Now all he needs is for his best 'pals' or whatever you guys call yourselves to go and see him…and to make sure that another idiot screws up on him."

Cox sank down on the couch, not making eye contact with his ex wife, giving her no clue that he had actually heard what she was trying to tell him.  
"But Perry, you are doing him no good here, drowning in that cheap alcohol. He…he needs you."

The 'tough' doctor merely picked up his glass again, downing it all in one go, ignoring Jordan's mouth, which was now moving silently as it gently caressed her stomach.

_**-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**_

Carla finally managed to corner her husband that night in their apartment, finally getting him to listen to what she had to say.

"What do you want me to do?!" he demanded, voice loud and coated in pent up anger and frustration. Carla looked away from her husband before replying.

"His doctors don't think he'll make it through the night," she said softly. The Dominican saw Turk visibly flinch away from her and the conversation.

"Baby, this may be your last chance and if you miss it…" she paused, wiping her eyes briefly before continuing. "Or would you rather take a page from Cox's book? You two are the only ones who haven't gone to see him since he was brought in."

"Carla…" Turk began, voice thick and eyes huge, looking lost. "I can't…" he muttered. "I can't go in and see him like that. I couldn't even volunteer to do his spleenectomy! It's my fault he's like this. I _told_ him to go, to leave because he couldn't function at the hospital! I-" the African American surgeon choked, no longer able to explain himself without totally breaking down. Even so, a few tears did leak out, rolling silently down his slightly rounded cheeks, completely unheeded by the two in the room who were more focused on the topic at hand.

"Baby, it's not your fault. Everyone told him to go, not just you. I'm the one who handed him his helmet and jacket, who shoved him out that door!"

"But that's because he _listens to me!_ I told him that I'd talk to Elliot, that we'd get his shift covered," he replied as he sat heavily on the couch, head in hands. "He _trusts_ me…"

-----

"Jordan, it's not the same!" Cox roared angrily as he straightened out to his full height, towering above the pregnant woman who didn't even bat an eyelash at his outburst.

"And why isn't it Perry? Everyone told him to go home that night. He was less useful than usual and-"

"You don't understand! The kid…he looks up to me. My god Jordan, I…I can't go in and look at that vegetable that used to be him," the man mumbled.

"You also can't just sit here and drink yourself into oblivion, hoping that it'll all just go away when you sober up," she replied calmly, watching him recall what happened last time.

"I can't do this. Not now; not with him."

"Perry, I'll come too, but if you don't do this now, I know you'll sit here on this couch and drink to get drunk any chance you get for the rest of your life. And I won't let you subject our children to that. We had it enough when we were young and I'll be damned if I'm going to let them grow up like I did," Jordan retorted, hand resting on her baby bump as she watched him. He blinked his red eyes several times before standing up and shuffling out the door, leaving his lover to lock up and follow.

_**-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**_

Carla stood outside the room her husband hand recently entered, their young daughter in her arms. There, lying so still in the hospital bed, lay Turk's best friend, John 'JD' Dorian. She held Isabella tightly, thinking to herself at how the hospital would never be the same again. Through all the crap that the Sacred Heart had thrown his way, JD managed to come through with a smile and sort of a sunny disposition. Carla recalled having to stay up with the young man when he had the flu several months ago and who also had to head in for a shift that morning, even though he was as sick as the patients. And as she thought of these moments she knew that she would do them all again in a heartbeat if it meant saving his life.

_**-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**_

Turk sat beside his best friend's bed where the young doctor lay uncharacteristically still. The surgeon slowly began to talk about all the times they had spent together and imagined how he would respond with his goofy 'black wannabe' lines and strange comments that seemed to come out of the blue.

"Man, that time you got appendicitis! That was fun. I mean, well, for me anyway. You totally almost had that blonde…uh…what was her name again? We had to stay up all night because you kept yelling that this was going to kill ya. But lemmie tell you, I'd go through all that again with a smile on my face if it meant you still bein' here…"

_**-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**_

Cox watched Ghandi slowly leave JD's bedside and exit the room solemnly. Carla and the little girl in her arms gave the bald surgeon a comforting hug, the nurse's eyes red and full of unshed tears.

Jordan, who had been walking a little ways behind the self proclaimed egotistical narcissist, stopped at his side when he paused outside his protégé's room. After several minutes, she gave him a gentle shove toward the door, glaring back at his glare. He entered the room swiftly, half entering his 'doctor mode' as he reached for the chart. Unlike Turk before him, the first thing Perry saw was a patient in critical condition, not the annoying Newbie who had managed to attach himself to the older doctor's side. He saw a pale, Caucasian male with flat brown hair and chalk full of injuries. Without thinking, Cox turned to yell at Newbie to get him something, but paused when he saw a closed door and no annoying young doctor at his side. Blue eyes closed slowly and his head hung as the full reality sunk in again.

When his eyes opened again, it was young John Dorian lying in the bed before him, a tube shoved down his throat and breathing for him, a leg casted and in traction, an arm on the opposite side in another plaster casing and in a sling. So many IV's and wires rose up from his prone body, pumping him full of medications-mostly morphine and antibiotics-and measuring his vitals.

"God, Newbie," he groaned, suddenly exhausted. He threw the chart down on the end of the bed and slowly made his way over to the bed that Ghandi had recently vacated. However, he was unable to make himself sit there and acknowledge the fact that there was nothing more that he could do for this young man and ended up standing at the end of the bed, arms crossed over his chest as he watched his protégé carefully.

"Why'd you go and have to listen to me?"

_**-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**_

The page came at 1:43 pm the following day. He had lasted longer than anybody expected him to, but in the end it hadn't mattered. JD's mother and brother hadn't even made it out to the hospital yet.

Carla, who had been in the cafeteria poking at her food and pretending to eat, simply pushed the tray away and cried there at the table. Elliot had been standing at the nurse's station with a chart ended up sinking to the floor as her legs gave out and she began to sob loudly, Keith rushing over to hug his girlfriend and give whatever comfort he could. Turk left the hospital completely, driving off somewhere for several hours. Perry, who had been looking over a patient, left the room immediately and made a bee line for the nearest phone. A strange sense of calm had settled and he made two calls with minimal shaking on his part. The first was to Jordan, who barely replied. The second however, was much harder than the first. The phone rang several times before somebody breathily answered.

"Dan? It's Perry Cox. I've got some…uh, some bad news…"

_**Step one you say we need to talk**_

_**He walks you say sit down it's just a talk**_

_**He smiles politely back at you**_

_**You stare politely right on through**_

_**Some sort of window to your right**_

_**As he goes left and you stay right**_

_**Between the lines of fear and blame**_

_**You begin to wonder why you came**_

_**Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend**_

_**Somewhere along in the bitterness**_

_**And I would have stayed up with you all night**_

_**Had I known how to save a life.**_

_**Let him know that you know best**_

_**Cause after all you do know best**_

_**Try to slip past his defense**_

_**Without granting innocence**_

_**Lay down a list of what is wrong**_

_**Things you've told him all along**_

_**And pray to God he hears you**_

_**And pray to God he hears you**_

_**Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend**_

_**Somewhere along in the bitterness**_

_**And I would have stayed up with you all night**_

_**Had I known how to save a life.**_

_**As he begins to raise his voice**_

_**You lower yours and grant him one last choice**_

_**Drive until you lose the road**_

_**Or break with the ones you follow**_

_**He will do one of two things**_

_**He will admit to everything**_

_**Or he'll say he's just not the same**_

_**And you'll begin to wonder why you came**_

_**Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend**_

_**Somewhere along in the bitterness**_

_**And I would have stayed up with you all night**_

_**Had I known how to save a life.**_

_**Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend**_

_**Somewhere along in the bitterness**_

_**And I would have stayed up with you all night**_

_**Had I known how to save a life.**_

_**How to save a life**_

_**How to save a life**_

_**Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend**_

_**Somewhere along in the bitterness**_

_**And I would have stayed up with you all night**_

_**Had I known how to save a life.**_

_**Where did I go wrong I lost a friend**_

_**Somewhere along in the bitterness**_

_**And I would have stayed up with you all night**_

_**Had I known how to save a life…**_

_**How to save a life**_

_**How to save a life…**_


End file.
